1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a transport vehicle service guiding system and a transport vehicle service guiding method adapted to provide service guiding information about a transport vehicle such as a shuttle bus or a like in response to a request from a user using, for example, aportable cellular phone, and a transport vehicle service guiding program to have a computer perform the above transport vehicle service guiding method.
The present application claims priority of Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-337233 filed on Nov. 20, 2002, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in many cases, a user of a public transport vehicle such as a shuttle bus or a like checks which bus stop is nearest to a destination by viewing, for example, a timetable, a route map, or a like being put on a guide plate at a bus stop and, when the user can visually identify an approach of a shuttle bus operating by way of the bus stop nearest to the destination, again checks a designation display or a like of the shuttle bus and gets on the shuttle bus and then gets out of the shuttle bus at the bus stop nearest to the destination that the user has targeted in advance. However, there is a problem in that, though the user can conveniently utilize such a shuttle bus at a low fare, unless the user has information about a bus stop being nearest to a destination, the user cannot check whether a shuttle bus passing through the bus stop where the user exists presently passes through a place being near to the destination only by checking a route map or a like on a guide board at a bus stop and the user, after having gotten on the shuttle bus, finds out that the user got on a wrong shuttle bus.
Moreover, there is another problem in that, even if the user knows a bus stop being nearest to a destination, when there are many bus stops on a route, since a description of the bus stop may be omitted on a route map in some cases, the user may be at a loss how to search for the target bus stop.
Furthermore, there is still another problem in that, when the user uses a shuttle bus in a place where the user is a stranger there, even if the user can get on the shuttle bus passing through a bus stop nearest to a destination, the user fails to listen to a broadcast about an internal guidance and may ride past the user's destination bus stop. Thus, cases occur where it is difficult for the user to certainly get on the target bus or to certainly get out of the bus at the target bus stop.
To solve these problems, a guiding system is disclosed in, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-48587 in which a user of a shuttle bus inputs information about a destination into the guiding system through a portable cellular phone of the user in advance and, when the user's portable cellular phone receives guidance data from the guiding system installed within the shuttle bus at time of an approach of the shuttle bus, the guidance data is verified against the information about the destination and, if the approaching shuttle bus is judged to be a target shuttle bus, a result from its judgement is displayed on the user's portable cellular phone and when the shuttle bus, after the user has gotten on the shuttle bus, approaches a bus stop that the user has to get off, the user's portable cellular phone receives guidance data from the guiding system installed within the shuttle bus and displays a get-off guidance.
Also, another guiding system is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-331888 in which, when a user operates a portable cellular phone to make access to a route guiding system within a vehicle and designates a destination, the route guiding system within the vehicle searches for the destination and stores information about the corresponding route guidance and continues to transmit information about guidance including relay guidance, arrival guidance, or a like until the user reaches the destination.
However, all the above conventional guiding systems have a problem in that comparatively intense radio waves transmitted or received within a vehicle such as a shuttle bus do harm to users of some of medical apparatuses being used in a same shuttle bus.